


Another Side of the Coin

by Mihan



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama & Romance, F/M, Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-12 17:01:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19949737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mihan/pseuds/Mihan
Summary: When the Rocinante encounters a strange spacial distortion during a run-of-the-mill mission, Lexi Burton wakes up in the wrong universe.  Amos/female!Alex





	1. Rough Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Expanse is not mine nor am I making any profit off of this. This is written just for fun.

Lexi woke with a startled gasp when she was thrown from her bunk and dumped onto the hard, metallic grate of the cabin’s floor. She didn’t even have a second to think before she was thrown across the floor. Her hands automatically shot out and grabbed the nearest thing she could, anything to get some purchase as the world whirled violently around her. A few loose items came flying from somewhere and clattered around her. She ducked her head into her arms to shield her head and held herself in place, waiting for the world to stop moving.

 _Where am I?? What is going on--_ Her frantic thoughts were abruptly cut off as the spinning stopped. Unfortunately, it yanked her away from her temporary shelter. This time she slammed painfully into the far wall, barely missing the single cabinet in the room, and lay in a crumpled heap. The wind was knocked out of her, but she’d stopped being tossed around like a ragdoll. When she was absolutely sure the world wasn’t moving under her anymore, she carefully lifted her head and took in her surroundings.

“Oh _oww_ ,” Lexi muttered as pain blossomed on her back and side where she’d hit the wall She examined a scrape on her elbow that was already turning red with dots of blood. For the most part, she was unhurt and shakily stood, trying to figure out where she was and how she’d gotten there.

A cursory examination of her surroundings revealed that she was in the Roci at least. She recognized her baby’s aesthetic anywhere. But this definitely was not her cabin. How had she ended up here? Was this a dream?

The pain in her back sure felt real. Lexi frantically wracked her memory as she absorbed the strange cabin that, at the same time, felt weirdly familiar to her. Her eyes roved over pictures and various things that she vaguely recognized as hers but were still _wrong_ somehow. She only recognized half of the people in the pictures but couldn’t connect a memory or feeling to any of them. 

The last thing she remembered was being relieved by the captain to get some much needed rest. The crew had been running on fumes (both figuratively and literally) after the last firefight by Janus. They’d emerged victorious, but the _Rocinante_ had been left in dire need of repairs and fuel. Holden had sent a tightbeam to their allies and had Lexi hide their ship while the rest of the crew worked to keep her afloat. They’d received a reply from Tycho Station that a Belter ship was en route with fuel and assistance, but it would take some days to reach them.

 _The clack-clack of heavy boots ascending the ladder to the flight desk made Lexi sit up straighter and run her hands over her face in a vain attempt to look more alert. She’d been manually monitoring the space around them since half of the_ Roci’s _sensors were malfunctioning from the damage she’d sustained in their last battle. It felt like a monumental task when her eyelids felt like lead weights, but it had to be done. They weren’t completely out of danger yet..  
_

_A moment later, James Holden appeared just behind her. “We picking up any more distortions?”_

_Lexi shook her head. “Not that I’ve seen. We were lucky we caught that last one before they attacked.”_

_“Good flying, Lexi. Get some rest. I’ll take this shift,” Holden’s voice betrayed how exhausted he was himself. He hadn’t had any more sleep than any of them in the past fifty or so hours but carried on from one task to the next with the same determination that had gotten them through the worst of storms. His prosthetic leg moved heavily along the grate, as if its owner didn’t have enough energy to lift it properly._

_Lexi had half a mind to tell him to get some rest himself and that she was fine. She really would have had she not been all but sleep in her pilot couch. They’d gone through three tense battles in the span of two Martian days, and her concentration was flagging now that the adrenaline had worn off. Nodding at him, she stood and felt a satisfying pop in her back as she straightened her spine for the first time in hours._

_“I’ll fix something up for the crew before I grab some shut-eye, Cap. Don’t forget to come feed yourself, ya hear?” Lexi admonished, and Holden waved her off with a tired smile._

_Lexi left the flight deck and made her way to the galley. She assessed damage that she saw with her own eyes as she walked and felt a twinge in her heart each time she saw something new. Her baby had been through hell. Yet she’d still pulled through and kept them safe despite the many mismatched panels and haphazard patches that pockmarked both inside and outside of the ship. At that very moment, the rest of the crew was trying to patch a hole in the cargo bay, adding even more to the patchwork. When the war was over, Lexi decided that she would give the_ Rocinante _the full detail and upgrades that she deserved. She liked to tell herself that she’d live long enough to see the day that_ Roci _would be restored to her full glory._

_When she reached the galley, she found their doctor hunched over a mug muttering to himself. This wasn’t an unusual sight. It was usually best to leave him alone until the high strung doctor sorted whatever anxieties he had out by himself. Predictably, her greeting was met with a disinterested grunt so Lexi left him to his devices and began retrieving the ingredients she’d need to cook._

_With their supplies dwindling, it would be a meager meal, but Lexi didn’t want the crew to go another day without something warm in their bellies. She pulled back her mane of black curls (it would have had chopped off by now if her husband hadn’t been so obsessed with them) and began to cook a colorful stir fry of flash frozen veggies and fried tofu in curry. She served it over a bed of hot rice along a side of mushroom soup to round out the meal. She ate as she cooked. When she was done, she was sweaty and smelled of food but also full and satisfied that her crew--her family--was taken care of._

_“Supper’s ready in the galley when y'all are done,” she announced into the nearby comm unit to the entire ship before departing for her cabin.  
_

_Her duty served, Lexi took a quick shower but discovered that she didn’t have anything clean to throw on. It’s not like there had been much time to do laundry in between fighting off various enemies and fixing the Roci, though. So she ended up in her underwear and one of her husband’s clean t-shirts before gratefully crawling into her bunk. She secured the safety straps over her, already feeling the tug of oblivion. She was out before her head had even fully sank into the pillow._

But it hadn’t been _this_ pillow. Lexi frowned as she really took in the details of this strange cabin. Crew quarters were rarely larger than a sealed alcove that could support one or two bunks, a closet, magnetically sealed drawers built into the wall, and--if you were particularly lucky (or the captain)--a shelf or desk. This one was clearly occupied by one person who didn’t seem to have a lot of personal possessions but had good taste in music at least.

 _It’s a man._ Lexi thought in dismay as she tried to find something to wear. There were several jumpsuits in the closet, but their sizes and dimensions were clearly meant for a man. One had a faded _Pur'n'Kleen_ patch on it while some proudly bore the _Tachi’s_ emblem in MCRN colors. She settled on a dull gray one that didn’t have any distinguishing marks at all. With her husband’s t-shirt tucked in the waist and a worn belt she found in one of the drawers, it diminished her resemblance to a child playing dress up in her father or mother’s jumpsuit. Marginally.

The clothing helped to ease away some of the vulnerable feeling. Nothing could be done about shoes as what she’d found at the bottom of the closet were way too big. So bare feet it was. She looked around the cabin again, lost as what she ought to do next. She’d tried the door, but it wouldn’t open. The panel revealed that it was in limited access mode, which was only activated in emergency situations such as the ship being boarded or if the captain had ordered an internal lockdown. A cold sinking feeling had settled into the pit of her stomach. 

If this was a dream, it was way crazy realistic. Had they been attacked while she’d been asleep? Was this a hallucination or simulation of some sort? Their enemies had used these kinds of tactics on them before, but this felt different somehow.

 _Did the Kroqons find us? Am I dead?_ Lexi briefly entertained that this was some sort of spirit prison that one of the Mormons on the _Canterbury_ used to talk about. She dismissed the thought, but it weighed uncomfortably in the back of her mind. She jumped when the comm burst to life.

“ _Alex? Alex, respond if you’re on the ship!_ ” Holden’s voice was stern, but Lexi thought she could detect a hint of frantic worry in it. It was such a relief to hear his voice that she felt her knees go weak. So they weren’t dead. _But who’s Alex?_

Naomi’s tense voice followed. _“I don’t see him on any of the cameras. Jim, he’s not on the_ Roci _.”_

 _“He couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air,”_ Holden stated, his frustration loud and clear. _“Amos? Any luck?”_

Lexi’s heart leapt into her throat at Amos’ gruff bark. “ _Nothing, Cap. If he’s on the ship, I ain’t see him._ ”

“ _Could he be outside?_ ”

It might have sounded like a bizarre question, but Amos replied in a tone as even as ever. “ _I can suit up and check._ ”

“ _Hold on._ _Scans show…_ ” Naomi trailed off ominously. Then, she called Holden’s attention with a sharp call of his name, and the comm traffic went silent. 

Lexi’s heart pounded. She thought about reaching out, but something occurred to her in that moment that froze her in her place. If this was the _Rocinante_ , her precious baby girl, why hadn’t she recognized Lexi as crew personnel? Crew personnel, especially the _pilot_ , would have been exempt from the limited access order unless Holden specifically decided otherwise. If she wasn’t being recognized as crew personnel...

She backed away from the door, suddenly struck by the wrongness of her surroundings again. Her eyes fell on the pictures that she had only given minor thought to in the bewilderment of her violent awakening. She recognized most of the locations from Mars (even the ones that no longer existed after the Rakhar invasion). Many of the faces were familiar. Her sister. Her parents and grandparents. Various buddies from her time in the Navy. Then there was a bearded man with a smiling face and dark, too-familiar eyes staring back at her from each picture. He grabbed her attention like a punch to the gut.

A beep signified an override command, and the door slid open. Lexi suddenly found herself on the business end of a rifle and the cold, hard blue eyes of her husband boring into her.

“Who the fuck are you?” Amos Burton demanded. His finger rested on the trigger at the ready.

Lexi’s hands automatically flew up. The words tumbled out of her mouth in sheer panic. “Don’t shoot! Amos, it’s me!”

“And who the fuck is _me_?” Amos asked, not even sounding slightly surprised to hear his name.

“Your _wife_!”

This did elicited a blink. The rifle remained steady and aimed at her heart. Amos' voice was flat and dubious. "My wife."

Lexi just nodded. Her eyes were glued on the rifle. Blood pounded between her ears. She’d seen Amos use a rifle hundreds of times without so much as breaking a sweat. Her husband had never hurt her, but she was starting to suspect that the wrongness of her situation was far graver than she’d initially thought. Her eyes fell on the hand that held the front of the rifle steady, on his left ring finger where there should have been something to see. She swallowed convulsively at the unmarked skin.

“That’s funny. You’d think I’d remember something like that,” Amos quipped in an unreadable tone. She flinched as she saw his trigger finger twitch ever so slightly.

Holden suddenly appeared behind him, followed a safer distance back by Naomi Nagata. The captain’s face was like stone, his tone low and furious. “Who the hell are you, and what have you done to our pilot?”

The sense of wrongness solidified like the cold ball of ice in her gut. She openly gaped at him and stuttered. “Captain, y-your leg. You’re not--you--!”

Holden frowned, confused, but he didn’t relent. “Answer my questions. Who are you and where is Alex?”

 _They really don't recognize me._ Lexi shook her head. The panicky feeling was rising. “I don’t know who that is!”

“You’re in his cabin so cut the shit. What’ve you done with him?” Naomi spoke up, the Belter steel in her voice unmistakable. Lexi’s eyes widened on her willowy frame, noticing the differences between the Naomi that she knew and this one even faster than she had with Holden.

“Cap, she seems to be having trouble speaking. Let’s put her in the airlock and let her think things over for a bit,” Amos suggested. He almost sounded bored. She was pretty certain that it wasn’t _her_ Amos, but his cavalier disregard for her life still made Lexi feel ill.

“Last chance,” Holden said, stepping forward. The small cabin suddenly felt too crowded. Lexi took a breath, trying to work out her jumbled thoughts into coherent words. Her life depended on it.

“My name is Alexia Burton. Uh...Lexi, actually,” she amended, looking between the three of them. Amos’ eyes narrowed ever so slightly at her last name. She looked at Holden earnestly, pleading with him to see the truth in the insane words that followed. “I think I _am_ your pilot.”


	2. Locked Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexi isn't well received by the Roci fam but she still has a job to do.

_Nope. Not surprised._ Lexi sat on the bed in the empty cabin that she had been locked in with her back pressed against the wall and her legs pulled up to her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut and ducked her head, resting her forehead against her knees. I _barely believe me. What was I expecting from them?_

At least they hadn’t spaced her. That was a silver lining, right? She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d been marched into this particular cabin and left to stew with her own thoughts. Strange that they hadn’t converted that storage room in the lower deck into a brig yet, but she wasn’t complaining. If this crew was anything like her own, she knew that they were up in Ops probably in deep discussion of what they were going to do with her.

She tried to imagine what her crew would do. Once they’d discovered that she was missing, a similar lockdown and search would have ensued. Amos was probably going berserk. She wished that she had taken just a few minutes to see him before that fateful lay down. They were always so busy, always pulled away by one demanding task or another. She dug her fingers into her arms until they hurt. _What if I’m stuck here? What if I never see him again? Or the others?_

Her eyes fell on her wedding band. It wasn’t gold or platinum or even any of the cheaper luxury metals available in the Belt. It had been handcrafted from a piece of scrap metal, welded into the ring shape, and meticulously sanded and polished until it passed for jewelry. It was the most precious thing anyone had ever given her in her life.

_They’d been married for three weeks when Amos had suddenly shown up on the_ Canterbury’s _bridge unannounced. It was late shift, and it had been Lexi’s turn to handle the_ Cant’s _long trek back to Saturn without a co-pilot for a few hours. She hadn’t even noticed him at first. Her sister had sent her the latest music from Mars as a wedding gift (the only gift she’d received from anyone in her family), and Lexi had been taking advantage of being the only person on deck by singing her heart out to the slow, soulful croon of good ol’ Martian music._

_Amos must have stood by and watched her humiliate herself for some time before he made his presence known. Lexi had jumped so hard that her headphones had flown off of her head. She whirled, flushed and furious. “Amos! Don’t do that, damnit!”_

_“I’m sorry,” Amos was actually grinning, which she might have marveled at had she not been so mortified. Her husband was still in his maintenance jumpsuit and had grease stains across his chest. “I thought I heard a cat dying in here.”_

_“You almost gave me a heart attack, you ass! Warn a gal next time!” Lexi’s face was very warm. She avoided Amos’ eyes by picking up her headphones and fussing about how they were scuffed. “What are you doing up here anyway?”_

_“Got something for you,” Amos held out his left hand, palm up. It was so dim in the standby light of the_ Cant’s _bridge that for a moment she couldn’t see what he was nestled in his large hand._

_“A ring?” Lexi picked it up and examined it in the light, noting the distinct weld marks and the weight. Her heart thrummed against her rib cage. “I thought we agreed…?”  
_

_Amos shrugged like it was nothing. “Just thought you should have it. Makes it more legit so if any of our corporate overlords come snooping. We’ll need to be convincing. ‘Sides, we had some metal scraps lying around in the shop so...” He scratched his nose and shrugged again._

_Lexi gawked at him. She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “Amos...did you_ make _this for me?”_

_He frowned, probably confused because she was openly staring at him with her mouth agape. “Yeah. No sense in wasting the scraps. Why?”_

_It was too much. She let out a small, flustered laugh as she slipped the simple band onto her left ring finger. It fit perfectly, which she stated out loud in wonder. Amos nodded gamely. “Yeah. Your finger’s about the width of a bullet I keep handy.”_

_It was such an Amos thing to say that she just tilted her head at him for a moment. She didn’t question it. Instead, she asked. “Did you make one for yourself?”_

_He shook his head and held up his left hand. “Nah. It would get in the way with all the shit I gotta’ do. I ain’t getting degloved because of a trinket. Naomi helped me with this.”_

_In better light, she saw that there were two thin bands of black ink burned into the skin of his ring finger. The bands ran parallel on top of his finger but then criss-crossed on the sides before widening back into parallel bands on the underside of the digit. It was a simple and practical wedding band tattoo. And it was so fucking romantic that Lexi wanted to jump his bones right then and there._

_Their arrangement wasn’t supposed to be romantic, though. They’d been friends with the occasional_ benefits _for a while. When Pur'n'Kleen began its incentive program for families willing to work for their company, an addendum offered a percentage bonus for workers with dual Earth-Mars citizenship. After a raucous night of drinking Belter moonshine, Lexi and Amos had somehow come to an agreement that it was an easy way to earn some extra script from the company. What better way to get a dual citizenship than for a Martian to marry an Earther while under Belter jurisdiction?_

_Only days later, the marriage was officiated by Captain McDowell, and the paperwork was submitted to officially change Lexi’s last name to Burton. It wasn’t like she’d miss the name Kamal anyway; her family had made it clear how they felt about her. She suspected that it would be a relief for them to know that their oddball daughter was out smearing another family’s name with her various failures and shortcomings._

_So the scheme was a win-win for everyone. They were just two unattached friends trying to make a little extra dough until their tenure on the_ Cant _was over. When the time came to go their separate ways, it would be easy enough to dissolve the marriage, and they would both walk away richer. Lexi knew from experience how easy it was to cast a marriage aside. At least this time it wouldn’t be with complicated feelings or disappointed families involved._

_“Thank you, Amos,” she said with genuine warmth and gave him a peck on the cheek. She was always careful to project her movements with him. The fact that he didn’t even tense up when she was in his personal space anymore was secretly gratifying. Something had happened to him in his past that had made him so tough yet so skittish._

_A big part of their agreement was never to ask so she just did the best she could to make sure not to trigger his bouts of rage. It worked for them. For some reason. And every so often they got to indulge as a husband and wife should. The sex was really, really_ good _. Win-win. No pesky feelings to complicate things. None at all.  
_

_His eyes softened ever so slightly. He reached out and tucked an errant curl behind her ear, the tip of his finger brushing the side of her face. His eyes were so blue even in the dim light. Her skin burned under his touch. She felt her pulse pick up, very aware of their proximity and how easy it would be to just…_

_Then, he murmured that he was going to bed. The spell broken, they parted ways, just two crewmates again. Lexi sighed to herself and watched him leave. She stared at her new wedding band, for a long time, after Amos left the bridge.  
_

Lexi wasn’t aware that she’d dozed off until a bang on the door woke her. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth to wipe away the drool she knew was streaked across her cheek and sat up. Damn. It hadn't been some bizarre dream. She was still in the makeshift brig on a _Roci_ that was definitely not her baby. And the painfully familiar face staring at her still wasn't that of her husband's.

Amos took in her distraught face but didn't comment. Instead he dropped a folded jumpsuit onto an empty part of the couch and dumped a pair of mag boots onto the floor. "Naomi says these should fit you. Put them on."

Lexi stared at the offerings and then quirked an eyebrow at him. "Is this a trick?"

"No. These are clothes," Amos answered like she was an idiot.

"I mean what's the deal? If you're going to space me anyway why waste the supplies?" Lexi snapped, ignoring the obtuse reply.

"Cap wants answers. You live while we think you can help us find Alex," Amos said. Then, as if he weren't threatening her life, went on factually. "If you don't, I put a bullet in your head or send you on a one way trip out the airlock over Janus. Cap might even let you choose."

This again. She exhaled slowly. "I already told you I don't have anything to do with your pilot going missing."

Amos snorted in his infuriatingly dismissive way, nodding to her. "You're wearing his clothing."

"I already explained this!"

"Right. Our pilot vanishes mid-flight, and then we find _you_ in his cabin wearing his clothes. Last I checked, Alex ain't got a girl he likes more than _Roci_ so I'm gonna’ guess that you're not here because he snuck you onboard," Amos cocked his head at her. 

Now that she was getting a good look at him, she could see the obvious differences from her Amos almost immediately. The handsome face was the same, as was the neat buzz cut and beard. He was still huge, both physically muscular and dominating in presence. What was glaringly different was the lack of visible scars, especially one that should have been a vicious cord burn around the base of his neck. The way he held himself was different too. Her husband was all grace and quietly controlled power while this Amos seemed like he was a whole lot of rough edges that had been tamed to resemble a normal, functioning human being. Lexi shivered, wondering which was more dangerous.

“I don’t know what happened to your pilot,” Lexi repeated slowly, for at least the tenth time now. “I really don’t. I went to sleep in my cabin. In _my_ bed. Then I woke up to your ship flying out of control in _his_ cabin.”

“Yeah, well a ship without a pilot will do that sometimes,” Amos flippantly answered. His intensely blue eyes were studying her. “What did you mean earlier? That crazy shit about you being our pilot.”

Lexi opened her mouth to reply but then hesitated. She knew anything she said would have sounded insane and that he probably wouldn’t believe her, but it wasn’t why she was suddenly reluctant. In the back of her mind, she heard her friend Tanthei’s whispery voice as he explained the dangers of multi-dimensional travel and why humans had yet to unlock its secrets. The Rakhari had learned this lesson the hard way.

_“Too much crossover leads to contamination. Dimensions separated for reason. Contamination disrupts natural progression. Unfair advantages. Imbalance. Timeline fixes itself. Wipes infection clean,” Tanthei tried his best to explain in his stilted voice. Unlike other Rakhari, he did not use his psionic abilities to communicate, knowing how much it distressed his human allies to hear a voice not their own in their minds. He had made great leaps and bounds in learning to manipulate his underused vocal chords to speak their language, but it was still rough._

“I, um, I just mean that I pilot a similar ship is all. Flown. When I was in the Navy,” Lexi stammered evasively. He didn’t buy it, of course, but he didn’t really say anything to that.

“Is your last name really Burton?” Amos asked suddenly, which did take her off guard. She noticed his eyes on her hand, on her ring.

Suddenly self-conscious, she hid her left hand behind her right one. She had an irrational fear that he would take the ring from her for some odd reason. “It’s my married name.”

_How would you feel if I told you that I was the female counterpart of your pilot from a parallel dimension and that you and I are married?_ Lexi entertained actually voicing the words for just one amusing second. What little amusement she might have gleaned from the thought quickly evaporated when she saw the expression on Amos’ face suddenly darken. 

He took a menacing step towards her, and she shrank back. His voice was hard and angry. “Who _are_ you? Who sent you to find m--”

Holden’s voice suddenly blared into the room from the comm terminal. “ _Amos, you need to get to the cargo hold. Something weird is happening. Suit up. I’ll meet you there._ ”

As if triggered by his words, the ship shuddered violently. Lexi’s hands shot out to brace herself in the bed. Amos was already halfway out the door. “On my way, Cap.”

He paused and fixed her with those same eyes that had been filled with intent just a second ago and yet looked curiously blank now. His quiet, almost pleasant, voice chilled her. “Put those on.”

Then he was gone. There was a loud sound, followed by another violent shudder from the _Rocinante_. Lexi’s hand shook as she quickly changed from the oversized jumpsuit to the new one. She slipped on the mag boots and clicked the heels together just in time to avoid being thrown from her feet as another, even more intense shudder went through the ship. She grabbed hold of the wall as she felt the ship lurch clumsily away in the beginning of evasive maneuvers.

“ _Hang on! They’re coming back again!_ ” Naomi’s voice was stressed.

“ _Naomi, can you shake them in those asteroids?_ ”

“ _I-I don’t know--!_ ”

A series of high-pitched thumps peppered the ship’s side in rapid succession. Then another burst of fire came and another. They were all hitting their mark. The _Roci_ veered wildly. Lexi cursed as she was nearly dislodged from the floor. Klaxon alarms blared, and the lights of the cabin flashed as power was diverted for critical systems.

_Why haven’t they engaged the shield?! Why are they letting the electrorounds hit us?!_ Lexi thought and yelped when she was almost yanked off her feet by a particularly powerful and unwieldy maneuver. She knew what she was hearing, and it made her blood run cold. Years of fighting in a bloody war that she saw no end to in her lifetime had honed her senses to recognize her enemy’s weapons. The Kroqons had found them.


	3. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexi steps up to fight a familiar enemy with an unfamiliar crew.

Lexi launched herself at the door and stared hard into the camera she knew was there watching and listening. “I’m a pilot! Let me help! NAOMI!”

She didn’t get a reply, but it wasn’t surprising. Naomi was doing her best to keep them away from the pursuing Kroqon ship. Lexi guessed that it was a gunship from the sounds of the rounds that were making contact. She hoped it wasn’t more than one, but all it would take was one Kroqon gunship with a full arsenal to blow them into bits. The entire ship rumbled and there was a grating metal sound of something twisting and breaking away somewhere.

Lexi slammed a fist into the wall in frustration. “NAOMI!”

She was drowned out by a burst of chatter between Holden and Naomi. She tried not to panic and listened to what was going on. Holden and Amos had gone to the cargo bay for some reason that wasn’t clear to her from Holden’s terse, short answers as to why. Naomi barely spoke as she struggled to evade their attackers.

Naomi’s panicked voice blared through the comm. “ _I can’t shake them. Holden, is the cargo off the ship?!_ ”

“ _No! The field is too strong! It’s pushing us back!_ ” Holden’s voice was barely audible over the roar of a vacuum and the continued assault on the ship.

_Field? Cargo??_ Lexi fell against the door and desperately clawed at the door frame for some purchase. Naomi’s erratic flying was beginning to make her sick.

“You need to fire back! Use your PDCs and fire in between bursts! They need time to recharge the electros!” Lexi insistently yelled, hoping that it wasn’t falling on deaf ears. Naomi heard her, though.

“ _I can’t fly and target them all at the same time!_ ”

“THEN LET ME HELP! Or we’re _all_ dead!” Lexi gritted her teeth as another barrage of electrorounds peppered the side of the ship just outside her prison. It sounded tinny, like pebbles blasted at thin sheet metal. Her suspicion that this _Roci_ wasn’t shielded or had reinforced armor was becoming a horrifying reality. It wouldn’t be long before the Kroqons sliced through them at this rate.

She didn’t give up. She persisted in trying to talk Naomi through the basics of multi target locking and power leveling while adjusting for thruster burn. It was frustrating but it was all she could do. She felt the ship lurch and heard the thunderous _ratatatatatat_ of PDCs. Naomi was heeding her advice, just sluggishly and with incredible inefficiency. A terrifying eternity seemed to go by.

“ _Fuck it! Fall, back. Amos, g--ut--I’ll ta--!_ ” Holden was hard to hear over the rapid fire and blasts that the _Roci_ was taking. Lexi didn’t need a translation. Moments later, the door slid open and Amos shoved a vac suit into her arms.

“Think you can fly this thing for real?” Amos asked, his breath fogging behind his EVA mask.

Lexi was already pulling the suit on. “Can’t be much different than my girl.”

They ran towards the flight deck. Lexi practically threw herself at the ladder and found Naomi looking flustered but concentrating. When she saw Lexi, her frown deepened and she glanced at Amos. He simply said climbed into the copilot couch and said. “Captain’s orders.”

“Trust me. I know how to fight them,” Lexi all be pleaded to Naomi. She saw the conflict on the other woman’s face, but then Naomi exchanged a long, wordless look with Amos. Then she took a moment to authorize the transfer of command and moved. She might not have approved, but it was clear she trusted Holden’s decision enough to put their lives in Lexi’s hands and go strap herself into her chair.

Lexi slid into the pilot’s couch and took a few critical seconds to orient herself. Things were customized differently, but she was able to follow the other pilot--Alex’s--logic in how things were arranged and why. It wasn’t far off from her own console but, to her chagrin, far less complex. This _Roci_ didn’t have nearly the defensive and offensive capabilities that hers did. The blank spot where she should have had shield controls was a bit worrisome. From the looks of it, they didn’t even have a laser cannon. Oh well. She’d make it work.

“Alright, darling. You don’t know me, but your twin and I are very good friends. You are a Martian gunship. And I,” her fingers flew over the consoles, seizing the ship’s power and diverting it into thrusters to kill their momentum momentarily. The _Rocinante_ flipped mid air, now facing the direction of their assailant, “am a Navy pilot. This small fry ain’t nothing. I’ve seen bigger.”

“Holy shit. What _is_ that?” Amos murmured when he got his first look at the Kroqon ship. It was wider than it was long with bulbous proportions and flat wings. The design had always reminded Lexi of a fat manta ray, an extinct species of marine life from Earth that she’d once learned about. She’d been wrong. It wasn’t a gunship. It was a seeker scout. 

Lexi didn’t answer Amos’ question. Instead, she transferred weapons to him and began directing him where to fire and when as she focused on getting them out of range of the electorounds. She could see the ship’s power levels fluctuating wildly as the electrorounds that had already hit the ship began to suck the power from various systems on the ship. If they didn’t shake them in time, they’d sap the power straight out of the engine and then detonate when they were full.

She worked on putting some distance between them. Amos kept the Kroqon bobbing and weaving, which helped to disperse the directed line of fire that the _Roci_ had been a sitting duck in front of. Lexi flipped them over the Kroqon and used the main railgun to shoot off a wing. She didn’t hit her target, but there was a satisfying burst of blue flames as she took out what must have been one of the Kroqon pulse drives. She had Amos concentrate his firepower on a specific spot as she took them into a corkscrew, narrowly avoiding two larger missiles that shredded a large asteroid nearby. Amos’ efforts rewarded them with another blue explosion on the other side of the Kroqon warship. It began to wobble and lose speed.

A warning message flashed on the left console just as Naomi warned that they were losing power fast in their auxiliary engine. Lexi swiped until she found a map of the trouble areas of their ship, noting the flashing red sections. She focused on the ones could be ejected immediately should an explosion be imminent. “I have to dislodge a section of the outer hull plating!”

Holden immediately protested. He was still down in the cargo area for some strange reason. “ _What? Why? It will leave the ship vulnerable!_ ”

“If I don’t, those electros will explode, and we’ll be cut in half anyway, Captain. They’re siphoning power from us to become little bombs,” Lexi hastily tried to explain. She was already entering the sequence to unlatch a part of the outer plating, the only thing that would keep the more vulnerable interior body of the _Roci_ from direct contact with space.

“ _If they land even one shot when we’re exposed, they’ll kill us anyway._ ”

Lexi tried not to feel annoyed that he didn’t understand what her Holden would have. She pressed on. “If I don’t, we’ll blow up anyway once those charges reach maximum capacity. These kinds of ship have weak firepower because they’re meant to cripple a ship for their gunships to take out. I think they’re going for the kill, though.”

While he mulled over it, Naomi reported that their power levels were starting to change drastically. It was all they could do to protect the reactor. After a lifetime, Holden let out a reluctant bark. “ _Fine. Do it._ ”

“Strap in, Hoss. It’s gonna’ get real ugly down there,” Lexi finished the setup and then glanced over at Amos. “Once I unlatch it, get ready to target lock.”

Amos, bless him, immediately followed her destructive line of thought. “We’re bombing them.”

One corner of Lexi’s lips tugged upward. “Yeah, we are. Ready. On my mark. One. Two. Now! Brace for juice, cowboys and girl!”

She turned the _Roci_ hard, feeling the g force shove her into her seat. The needles that went into her back pumped the cocktail into her to counteract the blackspots in her vision and nausea. At terminal velocity, she unlatched and flung the loose panel at the Kroqon ship that was doggedly chasing them with a sharp turn and their momentum. Before their enemy could avoid it, Amos unleashed a torrent of fire on it. It detonated the electro-ridden panel dead center on the hull. Soon the enemy ship was ablaze in blue flames and left in a scattered ruin. The explosion sent them jettisoning forward but Lexi was already burning some fuel to get them out of the blast radius.

They’d won the battle. Lexi slumped into the strange feeling couch and willed her heart to slow down. She heard Amos let out a whoop and Naomi confirm that their scans were no longer detecting any other ships in the area. Holden appeared on the flight deck and ordered her put some distance between them and the wreckage just in case.

“What about the other...what did you call them? Electros?” Naomi asked. On her screen was a status scan of the ship. It pinpointed all the tiny pockmarks that had been left in the _Roci_ , each of them glowing as blue in contrast. There were hundreds.

“If we kill the drive, it will slow down the energy consumption long enough to disarm them,” Lexi answered, struck by a sense of deja vu. It could have been any other normal day on her _Roci_ with her crew. This thought was a stark reminder that it was not.

As if thinking this same thought, the others glanced at her at the same time. In the flagging aftermath of the battle, they didn’t look hostile, but it was clear they didn’t know what to think. Holden decided that the time for talk would be later. For now, they needed to fix their ship and figure out what to do next. He sent Amos and Naomi to get a better look at their damage. Lexi did her best to help them while being careful not to reveal too much about the Kroqons and their technology. She’d surmised from their shocked reactions that this universe might not have had first contact with sentient alien life yet. Tanthei’s many cryptic warnings about timeline contamination sat heavily on her mind.

_Would my presence be considered an infection? Is the timeline going to wipe me out when it tries to correct the contamination?_ She suddenly noticed a small picture that she hadn’t paid any attention to before. It stuck out from behind the pilot’s console, out of the way but always within sight. A smiling woman and child of maybe six or seven peered up at her.

For the first time since she’d woken up in this strange place, she thought of the other unsuspecting person that had been affected. Alex. What meager information she had on multidimensional travel did not include any instances of two people swapping places nor did she remember Tanthei ever speaking of such things. She hoped that he wasn’t dead. Hopefully, her crew hadn’t overreacted once they discovered her missing and a strange man on board instead. _Oh lord. What did Amos do with him._

“You’re...Alex? From...somewhere else?”

Lexi jumped at Holden’s voice. “What?”

He was staring at her in wonder, as if he’d just seen her for the first time. She could tell that her initial attempt to explain to him about timelines and multidimensional hopping suddenly didn’t sound so crazy anymore. His scrutiny made her fight the urge to squirm. “I can see it now. The hair. Your complexion. Hell, the way you speak. Your features are a little softer, but I can see the resemblance. After seeing the way you just flew the _Roci_...I see it. I can’t even believe I’m saying this. How did you end up here?”

She turned in her seat to look at him. He was being earnest in his attempt to puzzle her existence out. Calling the feeling that washed over her ‘relief’ was an understatement. She shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. One minute I was asleep and the next I was awake in Alex’s cabin.”

Holden’s frowned as he thought this over. “Does this mean Alex is with your ship and your crew then?”

“I think so? I really don’t know. I’ve never heard of this kind of thing happening before,” Lexi replied. She suspected it was true. If Alex was alive and well with her crew then maybe there was a chance that they could reverse this somehow. A hundred scenarios played out in her head, each more troubling than the last.

“Thank you. For saving our lives, I mean. I know we were rough when we found you. You startled us,” The sincerity in Holden’s voice was comforting.

Lexi just shook her head to dismiss his need to apologize. “I understand, Cap. My crew probably did the same thing to your Alex, in all fairness.”

Absently, she toyed with her wedding band. The source of her anxiety was mostly of Amos and how he might have reacted. In her husband’s categorization of people, she landed firmly and unerringly in the people he needed to protect. No matter how many times she proved that she could take care of herself when it mattered, Amos’ overprotectiveness reared its head whenever there was even a hint of danger within Lexi’s vicinity. It was simultaneously endearing and annoying. She just hoped that the rest of her crew had stopped him from beating Alex to death.

“That ship. Was that from your...world?” Holden’s question was a welcome distraction. Kind of.

“Yeah, I think so,” Lexi hesitated and then asked. “I, uh, take it you guys haven’t made first contact? With xenos---sorry, er, _aliens_ , I mean?”

“Not directly no. Just the protomolecule. Does that mean anything to you?”

Lexi almost laughed but managed not to since she figured it might come off as condescending. The protomolecule wasn’t the catalyst for everything that had gone to shit in her timeline, but it had hastened things along for the worst. It meant something alright. “Yes, we’ve dealt with it.”

The fact that this Holden and his crew had their own encounter with the protomolecule helped to explain his lack of shock at seeing the Kroqon ship. She wondered just drastically different their universes had become. What kind of experiences did these people have that the first proof of sentient alien life was barely more than a blip on the radar in their daily lives? _Or are they getting a look at a possible future for their universe?_

She thought of the Rakhari attack on Mars, and the annihilation of Luna at the hands of the Kroqons. The countless lives that had been lost in the decade since First Contact. Could they be prevented here? Tanthei would not have approved at her line of thought.

Before Holden could press her for any more information, Naomi gave them an update. She and Amos had managed to burn away the inert electrorounds and isolate the rest that she thought were too high of a risk to take a torch to. They would need to be dealt with immediately. Holden had Lexi hide them in the shadow of a nearby asteroid (the sense of deja vu immediately struck again) that had gotten caught up in the nearby gravity well so that they could work with some discretion. Lexi called out a warning before she killed the drive, leaving them only on minimal power for critical systems and zero gravity.

She quietly stood by while Holden strategized what to do next with Naomi and Amos through a private channel. Their caution was understandable, but she felt out of place in a way she hadn’t in a long time. This wasn’t her crew, and they didn’t need to trust her, she reminded herself as she ran a hand up and down her arm in a poor attempt at self-reassurance. _I just want to go home._

“That sounds like a plan, Naomi. Keep me posted,” Holden concluded his discussion and then began tapping at the screen in front of him. He brought up a star chart an frowned at it for a second. He zoomed in a few times until he saw the part of space that they were occupying, or at least a close approximation.

“Before Alex disappeared and you appeared, we were on a cargo run for a contract. We picked up something on the way back to Tycho Station. A distortion in empty space,” Holden spoke up without looking at her, concentrating on narrowing their position on the map.

Lexi felt cold sweat trickle down her back. “So were we. It was after a battle, though, so we just thought it was something residual from the fight.”

Holden nodded grimly, as if he’d expected her to say that. He looked at her with a concerned expression. “As we got closer to this point _here_ , the distortion became worse. We realized that as we got closer, it was partially coming from _us_.”

“Okay. You lost me, Hoss. What are you talking about?”

He motioned towards the stairs. “I’m not exactly sure. Maybe it’s better if I show you. You might recognize something we don’t.”

Unsure what to make of that, Lexi nodded and let him corral her off of the bridge. To her surprise, they headed to the cargo hold. She suddenly recalled the strange way Holden and Amos had went straight to the cargo hold prior to the attack. “Earlier, during the attack, you mentioned something about a field? You were trying to get something off of the ship?”

Holden ushered her into the cargo hold and let the door close behind them. Lexi took in the unusual amount of cargo that was stacked in neat piles. They were mostly secured by thick silicate enforced straps. One large crate caught her eye. It looked out of place and separated from the rest as if someone had pulled it out hastily and then abandoned it.

“The anomaly we detected came from that crate. Amos and I tried to check it but it was like there was a wall around it that we couldn’t get through. Like a field protecting it. Now there’s nothing,” Holden explained. As he edged closer, he let his suit scan for any unusual energy signatures. When it appeared safe, he waved her forward. He lifted the lid of the crate and gestured to the items nestled in the packing foam. “Do you recognize what any of this is?”

At first, she thought it was just expensive art pieces. Amos had shown her pictures of vast museums filled with artifacts of Earth’s storied past. Closer examination told her that these weren’t from Earth at all. She saw symbols etched into two of the artifacts: a strange dial that resembled a timer and a series of connected rings that looked like they went on a hand with elongated fingers. The third object was the most unusual. It looked like an egg and was roughly the size of her head, smooth and made up of a metal so shiny that it could have been used as a mirror. There were similar symbols etched into the bottom in the shape of a ring that Lexi could barely make out.

“Why do you have these?” Lexi asked, eyes wide. She wondered what kind of contract would involve Rhakari artifacts in a universe where first contact had yet to be made. More importantly, who was waiting for them?

“As soon as the ship is in better condition, we’re heading to Tycho to find out what kind of cargo transport this was,” Holden said, clearly displeased that yet again someone had been withholding all the facts. “I’m hoping our contact can tell us more.”

“What about me?” Lexi asked, suddenly afraid that they were going to throw her back into the makeshift brig. She worried that if they left this area of space around Janus, where the switch had originated, that she’d miss some vital clue on how to reverse it.

Holden must have heard the anxiety in her voice. His face was so like her captain’s and yet different somehow. Younger. Less troubled by years of war and the burden of command in wartime. He gave her a reassuring look. “I don’t think whatever happened with you and Alex and these things reacting the way they did at the same time is unrelated. Don’t worry, Lexi. We’ll get some answers. One way or another.”


	4. Limping Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexi reflects, and the Roci gets a quick patch up on the way to Tycho.

_ Marrying Amos had come with some interesting side effects. For one, it had firmly made her off-limits to the other men on the  _ Canterbury _ ; not many would even dare to risk drawing the unpredictable and dangerous Amos’ wrath. It also made people she’d exchanged maybe two words suddenly curious about her. In the melting pot of Inners and Belters, the crew’s diversity was both advantageous and disastrous. The close proximity forced them to mingle, but there were feuds and prejudices that ran so deep that conflict was inevitable. _

_ For her part, Lexi had managed to get by without much problems even before she had married Amos. She wasn’t the youngest or prettiest or even the most interesting. She had slid into a comfortable zone of ‘passable-but-forgettable’ in the social hierarchy of the  _ Cant _ , and there wasn’t a day that she didn’t appreciate it. Pretty girls like Ade or Selene got their fair share of unwanted attention just for their looks. It was drama Lexi was all too happy to avoid. _

_ So when she was sitting at a table in the ship’s small, crowded mess hall trying to wake up with a cup of the pisswater that Captain McDowell insisted was just fine for his crew (especially on his dime), she was dismayed when two Belters plopped into the chairs across from her. She recognized them as two mechanics that worked in the bowels of the ship. She had seen them scuttling about when she went down to visit Amos with lunch sometimes. _

_ She pretended to be extra interested in her coffee, hoping her disinterest as well as the headphones firmly covering her ears would be the clues they needed to go away. No such luck. _

_ “Oye, pomang gufovedi. Can we sit?” greeted the taller of the two lanky Belters, Rowley. He was a strange looking man with long, gangly body of a Belter but thick, meaty shoulders and arms that only a life of hard labor could build. His complexion was surprisingly tanned for a Belter. His piercing green eyes and strange lopsided grin always sent an uneasy shiver down Lexi’s spine. There was something predatory in his demeanor that had always made her keep her distance.   
_

_ The other Belter was named Kyen and while he wasn’t as creepy, he openly stared at her with barely restrained resentment. His distaste for Martians was well-known. From the stories that Lexi had heard, he’d been orphaned at a young age at the hands of MCRN patrol. His parents had been smugglers and had been caught by the wrong patrol on the wrong day, leading to a lifelong hatred of Martians that Lexi was the lucky recipient of now. _

_ She took one look between these two clowns and began to stand up. Rowley quickly jumped to his feet, his hands out in a placating motion. “We na bring trouble! Just want to talk!” _

_ Lexi didn’t sit back down and kept the table and her newly vacated chair as a barrier between them. She didn’t bother to hide her suspicion even as she tugged her headphones down so that they rested on her neck. “Talk about what?” _

_ “We need a favor,” Rowley said. Sighing, Lexi turned to leave. The two Belters hastily rose to give chase. _

_ “Your help! We need your help!” Rowley corrected himself as stopped in front of her. He towered over her. Kyen had opted to come around the other side of the table and flanked her. She heard some of the talking and clanking of utensils falter around them as they drew the mess hall’s attention. In retrospect, Lexi could see why this looked bad from an outsider’s point of view. _

_ “Let me guess,” she said as she took a few steps back so that she wasn’t uncomfortably sandwiched between them. “Y’all need something from Amos. And y’all are too scared to talk to him yourself.” _

_ At least they didn’t try to deny it. They both began talking at once. Lexi didn’t even bother to slow them down or have them talk one at a time. She’d been on the  _ Cant _ for almost three years at this point, and while she could usually get by okay, there was no hope in understanding the thick, mangled accent of the two Belters when they were animatedly saying whatever it was they were saying to her in tandem. She managed to glean through context clues that it had something to do with Naomi not wanting to do something and that they needed Lexi to convince Amos to convince the  _ bosmang _. They were even more afraid of Naomi than they were of Amos. _

_ “I’m not sure why y'all think I can help you. Or Amos, even. This sounds like something y’all need to take up with Naomi,” Lexi remarked, nearly halfway across the mess hall now. Rowley and Kyen were apparently the sort of talkers that didn’t believe in personal space, which was unfortunate since they smelled unwashed and talked so fast that they were spitting all over themselves. She had been steadily retreating just to stay out of the splash zone. _

_ Rowley shook his head emphatically. “Bosmang won’t listen to us. She’ll listen to Amos.” _

_ “Listen, pomang,” the less diplomatic Kyen spat, “you Mickies walk around the ship like you better than us. We not asking for much, keyá?” _

_ She frowned at him. She’d entertained this long enough. “Well, since you asked nicely let me drop what I’m doing and run down there now!” _

_ He took another step in her direction, obviously ready to press his point. It wasn’t a threatening gesture, but again, when Lexi had time to reflect later, she could see how one walking into the mess hall to see the scene could assume the worst. Unfortunately for Rowley and Kyen, what Amos saw when he came in looking for some chow were two large, obnoxious Belters (who were known for mistreating women) crowding his wife towards a far corner. When Kyen took a step too close, too fast, it had sealed his and Rowley’s fate. _

_ Lexi’s jaw fell open when Kyen was suddenly yanked backwards. His head made a sickening crunch as it bounced off the surface of the table. Kyen had barely hit the ground before Amos was barreling over him with deadly intent for Rowley. Rowley didn’t even have time to shout out before Amos’ fist slammed into his face. Then again and again and again. The Belter was taller than Amos but was thrown across the table like a bloodied ragdoll. At that moment, Kyen groaned and tried to get up. _

_ “Amos! Amos,  _ stop! _ ” Lexi shrieked when Amos whirled and kicked the hunched over Kyen in the stomach, dropping him again. He kept kicking, his face dark and chillingly blank. It was suicide to get in his way, but if she did nothing he would kill them for sure. “Amos! It’s over! Stop!” _

_ Kyen was sprawled on his back and scrambled backwards. His lower lip was busted from where Amos’ boot had caught him in the face, and he looked up at Amos’ huge, angry form in utter terror. Around them, the sounds of multiple chairs scraping could be heard as other Belters began to rise from their seats. Some were ready to jump in to help defend their  _ beratnas _ from the angry Earther purely based on the principle of the matter, but most hesitated and heckled instead. Lexi carefully grabbed Amos’ arm, ready to duck if he lashed out on instinct. She might as well have been tugging at a concrete pillar. _

_ “Amos. Darling,  _ please _.  _ Stop _ ,” Lexi insisted desperately, suddenly very aware of the crowd that had gathered around them. Amos stopped advancing on the fallen Kyen, but his aggressive stance didn’t waver. She heard him breathing in harsh, quiet breaths. The eyes that were glaring down at the two Belters were laser focused and bright with fury. His fists were still clenched, one of them now smeared with Rowley’s blood. He was looking at the two like they weren’t even people. _

_ Ignoring the chill that her husband’s ease with resorting to violence sent through her, Lexi hesitantly stepped around so that she was in front of him. Her body broke his line of sight enough to distract him. He turned wild eyes on her, the pupils constricted like an animal that was barely maintaining self-control. She placed a placating hand on his chest just below his collarbone and rubbed at the flushed skin with her thumb. “Let’s just go. Please? It’s over.  _ It’s over _. Amos?” _

_ He looked at her for a long moment. She could see a torrent of emotions and memories in his eyes. She half expected to be pushed out of the way so that he could continue his beating of the two. Instinctively, she knew not to show any more assertiveness and let her gentle coaxing cut through the red haze that she still saw on his face. _

_ Amos didn’t push her away. After the longest few seconds, he looked over her head. By now, Rowley had stumbled back to Kyen and was helping him up. They froze under Amos’ look. Amos’ voice was as hard as steel. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t touch her. You don’t fucking _ look _ at her.” _

_ They weren’t dumb enough to do anything other than agree and then scrambled for the exit. Lexi let them get out of sight. She cast a nervous glance at the crowd, most of whom were thankfully losing interest now that the drama was over, and then took Amos’ unsullied hand, muttering that it was time to leave. The crowd of stony faced people parted for them.   
_

_ When they were safely out of the mess hall and down the corridor, Lexi let out a shaky breath and ran a hand through her curly hair anxiously. “Jesus, Amos.” _

_ “Did they try anything?” Amos demanded as he stopped, gently pulling her to stop as well. The switch for kill-mode had been turned off now that they were away from the tense situation. _

_ “No! We were just talking,” Lexi answered, exasperated.   
_

_ Her exasperation was further compounded when she elaborated and Amos scowled. “This shit again? Naomi said no. What’s so hard to understand about that?” _

_ Naomi’s word was always word of law in Amos’ world, no questions asked. Lexi and Naomi got along well enough, but she wondered what would happen should they ever disagree. A distant part of Lexi wondered if she should have been more affected by this possibility than she was. Perhaps in a real marriage she might have been. Presently, she just frowned at him. “That was too far, Amos. There was no need to beat the tar out of those guys. We talked about this!” _

_ Amos’ brows furrowed, slightly confused. “They didn’t look like they were just meaning to talk, Lex.” _

_ “Amos, I had it handled. You could get into some serious trouble for this! It wasn’t even worth it!” Lexi scolded. She worried at what Captain McDowell would do. The man didn’t have much love for the scoundrels that made up much of his crew, but any threat to productivity (therefore a threat to profits) was not to be tolerated. _

_ Amos absorbed this, but she wasn’t sure if it meant anything to him. His jaw clenched, and he bluntly spoke. “You’re my wife. I’m supposed to protect you, aren’t I?” _

_ He asked asked it so plaintively. It was just that simple to Amos when it came to people that he cared about. Or in her case, felt responsible for. Lexi sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She couldn’t even stay upset, but the worry of him suffering consequences gnawed at her. In her mild distress, she automatically began to reach up, intending to do something affectionate to thank him like touch his face or kiss him or something, but stopped herself. She reminded herself about the dangers of attachment and of the business nature of their agreement. _

_ He noticed but his expression remained impassive except for a single flash of emotion that flitted across his face so quickly that she thought she had imagined it. Maybe she read into a lot of the things he did more than she should have. Lexi flushed, withdrawing her hand awkwardly. She settled on a lame and quiet word of thanks, which Amos just accepted with an atypical nod. _

_ “Let’s go talk to Naomi if you’re worried. She’ll help us deal with the captain,” Amos suggested after a beat of awkward silence, already turning to lead the way. _

_ “Yeah. Let’s do that,” Lexi agreed quietly, wondering why she felt relieved and disappointed all at once. _

*************

They worked long hours to get the  _ Roci _ in safe flying condition. Holden had been unwilling to go anywhere until they could patch something over the space that Lexi had detached part of the hull from. So Naomi and Amos had spent most of the next days welding together a makeshift patch that could sustain prolonged flight and give the interior hull some protection in case they had to move quickly. Lexi offered what help she could with Holden hovering close by, monitoring the crew.

There were no more answers to be gained from examining the mysterious Rahkari artifacts that this crew had in their possession. Even if she’d been willing to divulge the information, Lexi didn’t know much about Rahkari technology beyond what she’d seen Tanthei use over the years. She’d never seen him storm a ship or fight off Kroqoni Hak’tok warriors with mirror eggs or ornamental gloves.

_ So they’re probably not weapons. _ Her mind cheerfully, unhelpfully, observed.  _ Probably. _

Her relationship with the others had thawed somewhat over the days they spent fixing the ship. She wasn’t included in all of the discussions, and she knew her access was limited to the ship wide systems. She was always within sight of at least one of them. It was hard not to feel a little hurt by the suspicion but given the oddness of the situation, the caution was warranted. At least they hadn’t locked her back up. She’d been temporarily assigned to the cabin as her quarters, but she was only confined to sleep.

“Does Alex do all of your cooking too?” Lexi asked Holden one day when they spent the third day in a row eating some mishmash of soy and pasta that he’d valiantly whipped up to feed the crew. It tasted like cardboard sprinkled with wet softsand, but it was semi nourishing and just enough to keep the crew fed and working.

Holden didn’t harbor any illusions that his dish wasn’t more than quick sustenance. Like her captain, he’d grown up spoiled by real food and ingredients on a farm on Earth and had never quite embraced substitute proteins and carbohydrate alternatives to make anything creative. “Mostly.”

“Alex is a big stress eater. So he  _ knows _ space comfort food,” Amos deadpanned, shoveling fork fulls of the pasta into mouth. He’d doused it in so much hot sauce that his lips were red. Across from him, Naomi ate the bland dish without saying much at all. Both she and Amos looked exhausted, but there was still so much work to be done. Like every other day, they would eat and then get right back to work. The four of them ate mostly without talking. Every so often Lexi would glance over to the seat where she expected to see Shed, but Holden had told her he’d died years ago.

When they cleared out of the galley, Lexi washed the crew’s dishes and then glanced at Holden, who was beside her brewing himself the third cup of coffee for the day. “Captain, would it help if I cooked our next few meals? I, uh, do it for my crew.”

She almost made a joke about promising not to poison them but stopped herself. Instead, she added. “You can monitor me if you want.” At his long, thoughtful look, she went on. “I just want to contribute. I know my being here has been a burden.”

It was dumb because logically she knew it wasn’t her fault, but Lexi still felt guilty. They looked so tired, and she couldn’t even help much because they couldn’t be entirely sure that she wasn’t some crazed person with impressive acting skills and her own agenda. She had spent so many years taking care of her own crew that this need to ease their burden was just ingrained into her at this point. If Alex hadn’t been beaten to death or thrown out of the airlock by her own crew, she hoped he was returning the favor. She imagined her crew sitting around the galley table eating this same dish, and it made her sad.

“Alright,” Holden said at last. “Dinner is your responsibility.”

They cleared out of the galley and set back to getting the  _ Roci  _ back on her feet. Naomi and Amos’ efforts were not in vain. Lexi tested the integrity of the hull patch with a few careful maneuvers through the field of asteroids and debris that they’d been hiding in. The sensors returned stable numbers, and there was a collective sigh of relief.

“Good work. Get some rest. We’ll wake you if anything comes up,” Holden directed to the Engineer and Mechanic. He sat in the copilot’s couch and looked up at Lexi. “Do you know the way to Tycho?”

“Course already set, Cap.” She had him verify to make sure that it was still in the same position as it was in her universe. Then the battered  _ Rocinante _ was on her way. Lexi ran another scan as they passed back by Janus, half hoping to detect another distortion, but there was nothing but silence. She exhaled softly and tried not to think that the possibility of going home was getting further and further away from her.

They traveled in silence for a while. The autopilot was engaged as they ran on a steady third g burn, which was all Lexi was comfortable running with the makeshift patch. She noticed Holden had drifted off a few minutes into the start of the journey. Good. He looked as if he could have slept for days and still not have been rested. She tried to run a diagnostic of the ship, but the limited access on her login kept her from seeing any details of value. So Lexi was left to entertain herself with her thoughts.

Her eyes fell on the picture Alex kept of his wife and child on the console. She didn’t recognize the woman, but she was clearly Martian. She studied her face, wondering if this was the female equivalent of her ex-husband or if this was someone completely different. The sight of the smiling child stirred something buried deep within her that she thought she had put to rest a long time ago. Her thoughts turned to Alex, wondering why he had ended up on his  _ Roci _ . She suspected that their reasons weren’t very different.

_ You were the Good Martian I couldn’t be. It still wasn’t enough for them huh, cowboy? How long did it take for you to realize it never would be? _ Lexi wondered and shook off the unpleasant thoughts. There was no point in dwelling on things that they couldn’t change. She still sat lost in memories and regrets for a long time. When she got tired of her morose thoughts, she quietly got up and wandered the deck to stretch her legs. She studied the command deck and added to her mental catalogue of similarities and differences to make the time pass.

The sound of heavy footsteps on the ladder from the lower deck made her freeze. Amos didn’t react to her presence other than a quick nod when their eyes met. He immediately made his way over to his favorite couch and slid into it, his attention already on the terminal pad. She could tell he’d showered and trimmed off the last few days’ worth of beard. She opened her mouth to talk to him, to say anything, but then couldn’t find anything to say that wouldn’t make her feel any less like a silly, flustered little girl around her crush.  


It was incredibly frustrating to be so close and yet not know what to do or say around him. She knew he wasn’t her Amos, but it still felt like years of trust and affection and  _ work _ had been undone overnight. She studied his profile with a heavy feeling in her chest.  _ We  _ are _ strangers. Pretty much. It ain’t him, girl. No matter how much you want it to be. _

Swallowing her disappointment, Lexi turned back towards the ladder leading to the flight deck. Maybe she could just lose herself in some flight simulations (if they’d even allowed her access to  _ that _ ).

“We’re married, huh?” Amos didn’t even look up from his terminal, still fixated on whatever he was tapping and swiping at.

Lexi had one foot on the first rung and gripped the handrail with one hand. She tried to gauge what he was thinking, but she didn’t know enough of this Amos to get a read on him. When she didn’t audibly reply, he glanced up at her and she shrugged. What did it matter to him anyway? She wouldn’t be mocked about something as important to her as her marriage was...even if it was by her husband’s alternate dimensional counterpart.

“Why are we married?” Amos asked. At first, she thought he was just being an asshole with some unsaid insinuation she hadn’t caught yet.  


He genuinely looked puzzled, though, so she asked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean  _ why are we married? _ I don’t usually shit where I eat. It’s bad business,” Amos said in his straightforward way.

Lexi weighed her options on how to answer this. She thought about making something up or not answering at all. In the end, she chose honesty. “Well, we  _ did _ marry for business.”

She told him about the deal Pur’n’Kleen had run for workers with dual Earth-Mars citizenship. Judging by his reaction, it had not been something that had been available on his  _ Canterbury _ . Or maybe he just hadn’t cared enough to pursue it.   


The early push for solidarity in the system was just another of the many differences between their universes. There would have been no reason for Pur’n’Kleen to care about dual citizenship if relations had still been cold between Earth and Mars. Then again, the Inners and Belters in her universe had only barely managed to pull it together, and cooperation hinged entirely upon having a common enemy. This universe was just getting its first taste of this, from what she gathered.  


Amos stared at her intently. “The  _ Cant _ was years ago, wasn’t it? If the timelines are as similar as they seem to be.”

Lexi nodded, unsure where he was going with this. “Yeah, I guess.”

“So your deal should be over. Unless your Cap is offering you the same incentive.”

Lexi’s eyes narrowed as she heard what he was really asking.  _ Why are you still married  _ now _? _

Maybe the idea was that repulsive to him. It hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder what his relationship with Alex was like. They had to at least have been friends, right? She suddenly didn’t want to know, as if the knowledge would somehow contaminate the curious business agreement she’d made years ago that had transformed into so much more.

“Something like that,” Lexi abruptly ended the conversation by ascending the ladder to the flight deck. She went back to the pilot’s couch that didn’t quite feel right and sat at the controls that she wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable with. Her hands restlessly tapped at the terminal, accessing a few things she was allowed to but more often than not gritting her teeth when an ‘Access Denied’ message stonewalled her.  _ Remember. This isn’t yours. _

After triple checking their flight course and integrity of the hull patch, she ran out of things to do. She settled on filling the screen with the front outer hull camera. Unfamiliar stars streaked by in fleeting points of white light. She closed her eyes and let herself pretend just for a few seconds that she was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone else was curious, but this is the actress I had in mind if I could cast Lexi just based on looks. Her name is Tisca Chopra: http://www.nidokidos.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=372117&d=1513783089


End file.
